The present invention relates to certain amine-terminated poly(arylene ether phosphine oxide) oligomers of the general formula ##STR2## where Ar' represents phenyl, biphenyl, bisphenol-A, etc., n is an integer of from about 1 to about 50, and NH.sub.2 can be in the meta position. These materials can serve as useful oligomeric intermediates to introduce the poly(arylene ether phosphine oxide) group into polymeric structures by appropriate reaction of the amine functionality (e.g., in toughened epoxies or bismaleimides or as intermediates for segmented copolymers). One potential application is to react the amine functionality with 3-isocyanatopropyltriethoxy silane to form a triethoxysilane end-capped material which can be reacted with a metal alkoxide (e.g., titanium isopropoxide) ,using sol-gel chemistry as described in U.S. Ser. No. 552,634 entitled "High Refractive-Index Hybrid Material Prepared By Titanium Alkoxide And A Phosphine Containing Oligomer" filed on even date herewith to form hybrid inorganic/organic materials (also termed "ceramers") which are useful as coatings or in optical systems.
The oligomers of the present invention can be readily formed by the nucleophilic aromatic substitution step polymerization of a bisphenol monomer, a dihalo triphenyl phosphine oxide monomer, and an aminophenol using polymerization techniques known to persons of ordinary skill in the art. The amount of bisphenol and triphenyl phosphine oxide should predominate to insure the formation of repeat units containing such moieties with the aminophenol end-capping the oligomeric structure. Thus, the value of the repeat unit "n" in the oligomer is inversely related to the concentration of aminophenol used.
A representative Example showing synthesis of the amine-terminated poly(arylene ether phosphine oxide) oligomers of the instant invention is as follows: